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Student Accused of Blackmailing A Singer

Website of Boa Kwon, the famous pop singer in South Korea and Japan who's more popular as 'BoA', has been hacked by a college student. The student was arrested on charges of blackmailing and hacking the singer's blog. He was also accused of threatening the singer to spread her personal photos.

According to the news by Asia Media on June 15, 2007, the student known as Seo, a major in communication and information, is reported to have hacked the blog in April 2006. He stole snaps of BoA with a male singer and sent them through email to her manager. He blackmailed them by threatening them of releasing the photographs and tried to extort 35 million won from the singer.

As published on June 15, 2007, English.chosun said, that this student hacker was also known for hacking the mail account of singer Lee Hyo-lee. On top of that, on 2nd June, 2007, Seo has also demand W65 million from an unnamed singer.

According to the news reported by Asia Media on June 15, 2007, S.M Company, an entertainment company, claimed in a press release that BoA and the male singer Ahn Danny (former member of pop group g.o.d) are believed to be fast friends. Further, Seo threatened to spread a rumor and the manager did many attempts to catch him by contacting him and by providing him money.

According to the police and company, earlier this month, Seo also sent threatening emails to Ahn and his manager 10 times and demanded 65 million won for not spreading the rumor and snaps. The police looking into the matter of BoA's case tracked the emails and finally caught Seo.

And for hiding his identity, Seo sends mail through the mail address of Lee he had obtained five years back, when he hacked Lee's account.

Operator of Cyworld, SK Communications explains that instead of breaking the Web system, Seo simply logged into the blog by perceiving the password from the information of BoA, which is not disclosed for the public viz. date of birth.

However, it is not the first time that celebrity's blog has been hacked either by logging or hacking; earlier also there have been several instances of similar act. There's a huge pressure on people that they should respect the stars' privacy.

In April 2007, a private blog of KBS anchor Chong Dong-sok was exposed and hacked. The blog has snaps of his girlfriend and it also includes his photos with co-host Park Ji-yoon and consequently, he revealed these snaps on the internet. Being the private snaps, both of them filed a complaint to the police.

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